Former President Donald Trump has arrived in Miami ahead of his Tuesday court appearance after being accused of unlawfully storing national security documents at his estate.
Mr Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, is scheduled to be in a Miami federal courthouse on Tuesday afternoon.
He is accused of unlawfully keeping thousands of US classified documents and lying to officials who tried to recover them.
But Mr Trump, who turns 77 on Wednesday, has proclaimed his innocence and vowed to continue his campaign to regain the presidency in the 2024 election.
He touched down in Miami on Monday afternoon in a private jet with his name emblazoned on the side.
Supporters gathered outside a nearby golf club he owns, where he was due to stay the night.
“I HOPE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY IS WATCHING WHAT THE RADICAL LEFT ARE DOING TO AMERICA,” he wrote on his Truth Social social-media platform before departing from New Jersey.
His legal woes have not affected his popularity among Republican voters.
Mr Trump accuses President Joe Biden, a Democrat, of orchestrating the federal case to undermine his campaign. Mr Biden has kept his distance from the case and declines to comment on it.
Mr Trump spoke to an enthusiastic crowd in Georgia over the weekend and his campaign said he would make a statement on Tuesday night, when he returns to New Jersey.
Miami police chief Manny Morales said the city was planning for a crowd size of up to 50,000 people and would close roads in the downtown area if necessary.
Special Counsel Jack Smith accuses Mr Trump of taking thousands of papers containing some of the nation’s most sensitive national-security secrets when he left the White House in January 2021 and storing them in a haphazard manner at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate, according to a grand jury indictment released last week.
As special counsel, Mr Smith, who is heading the case, is given a greater degree of independence than other Justice Department prosecutors, to try to minimise political factors. He is also investigating Mr Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.
Photos included in the indictment show boxes of documents stored on a ballroom stage, in a bathroom and strewn across a storage-room floor.
The indictment alleges Mr Trump lied to officials who tried to get them back.
Mr Trump is the first former or current president to face criminal charges, but legal experts say that does not prevent him from running for president - or taking office even if he is found guilty.
Legal experts, including Mr Trump’s former attorney general William Barr, say the case is a strong one.
The charges include violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalises unauthorized possession of defense information, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Any federal trial in Florida may not take place until after the November 2024 presidential election.
Mr Trump also is due to go on trial in March 2024 in a separate case in New York state court, stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star.
